News spread like a wildfire throughout internet blogs last month that the Egyptian Foreign Minister supposedly said on the Egyptian TV show Round Table that President Obama personally told him earlier this year that he – Obama – was brought up as a Muslim, still had many Muslim family members, and that he would begin to change American foreign policy towards the Middle East to address Muslim concerns.
While I find it hard to believe that President Obama would have made such a comment in private to the Egyptian Foreign Minister, there is no doubt that Obama is in the process of changing American foreign policy towards Israel and towards the entire Middle East. And not for the better in my opinion.
Let’s not forget that Obama has been on the wrong side of most important foreign policy decisions since he took office. He looked the other way when ordinary Iranian citizens tried to rise up to challenge Ahmadinejad; he supported Zelaya the Honduran ex-President who was removed from office by his own government; and he wrote personal notes to North Korea’s Kim and Venezuela’s Chavez telling them that America had not been a fair partner in trying to overcome policy differences. And then there was the missile defense capitulation to Russia’s Medvedev and his ongoing all talk, no action, stance on Iranian nuclear ambitions.
Maybe President Obama thinks if America resets its Middle East foreign policy to better support the Muslim world’s preference to minimize or eliminate the State of Israel, that the Muslim world will like him - I mean our country - better. And perhaps he thinks that the Jihadists will stop their centuries old battle against non-Islamic religions. How naïve!
The Israeli government has made its fair share of mistakes in its recent actions. Letting word leak out about the status of a long-planned 1,600 East Jerusalem unit housing development while Vice-President Biden was meeting with Israeli officials, and its recent failed boarding of a ship trying to challenge the Gaza blockade, could have been handled better. But the need for the United States to solidly back its most reliable ally in the Middle East should not change.
Unfortunately Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have left no doubt about their beliefs that it is the fault of the Israelis that the Middle East peace process is again at a standstill. Perhaps each of them has forgotten that Israel was prepared to make major concessions as part of the Oslo Declaration brokered by Hillary’s husband in 1994. But Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, ultimately rejected most of the agreement because of political pressure at home.
And today, the terrorist group Hamas is in control of the Palestinian territories with little interest in making peace with Israel. And it continues to launch missiles and suicide bombers into Israel from Gaza which is why the Israelis launched its maritime blockade to prevent additional explosives and questionable supplies from reaching Hamas.
Yet President Obama believes that pressuring Israel to accept peace demands from Hamas will put an end to the ultimate goal of Hamas and its Iranian sponsors to destroy Israel. But what else can we expect from an individual who was tutored by Reverend Wright for nearly 20 years about the evils of Israel and America. Or whose Presidential candidacy was strongly supported by billionaire George Soros who actually blames Israel for anti-Semitism.
While the Republican Jewish Coalition and many leading conservative organizations have been quick to condemn Obama for his Middle East policies, there has only been a weak response from prominent Jewish Democrats such as our own Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz who usually runs to the national TV cameras to publicize her thoughts on just about any other subject. And the liberal media continues to focus on the fate of the Palestinians rather than on the security of the citizens of Israel.
Thankfully a recent Gallup poll detailed that more than 60% of Americans say their sympathies are with the Israeli people in ongoing Middle East conflict while only 19%agree that the Palestinian position is correct.
Perhaps our President will join the majority and focus his efforts on eliminating the security threats to Israel and the peace living world.
